In the Afterlight (Bonus Content)

by Alexandra Bracken

  And maybe some part of me remembered that story—Sir Sammy, fair knight, off to find and rescue Prince Lucas from the outcropping of rocks that doubled as a dungeon and fortress depending on the day. I’d sing, and he’d answer with a shout, I’d sing and he’d answer again, over and over until we were tired of the game or were called in for dinner. I always found him where I knew he’d be. It was the searching that was the important part.

  Eventually, you grow up and you stop pretending. This place beats every last dream out of you. It clears your head of such stupid things. The truth was simple, not a glossy fairy tale. Lucas was a year older than me and three years older than his sister, Mia, but neither had been hit with IAAN in the time I’d known them. They moved away a few months before I realized I’d already been affected by…the virus, the disease, whatever it was. Their parents had both lost their jobs and headed a ways north to try to find work in a bigger city.

  Bedford was a small town made even smaller by the economic crash and the bottomed-out markets that the people on TV couldn’t shut up about. My parents hadn’t let me say good-bye to the Orfeos—they’d never liked their “influence.” They’d whisper that word like it was the devil’s own name. Influence. They didn’t like how I acted when I finally came home, zipping through the rooms, trying to recreate the carefree way we’d run around their house and outside in Greenwood, smacking each other with plastic swords. They didn’t like it when I told them about Mrs. Orfeo giving us snacks, or when I repeated something she had said. It took me a while to understand that when you don’t like someone, nothing they can say or do will ever seem right. Something as harmless as giving a kid a cookie becomes something aggressive, a challenge to their authority.

  So I’d watched them drive off from my bedroom window, crying my stupid eyes out, hating everyone and everything. I didn’t stop until I found the bundle of sparklers he’d left for me in the tree fort. The notebook of stories he’d spent three years writing. I kept them there so my parents wouldn’t find them and take them away. I wonder all the time if they’re still there. If Greenwood exists anywhere outside of my head.

  My family only got to stay because we lived off the charity of the Church. I don’t know if my parents are in the old house, or if they picked up and moved as far from the memories of their unblessed freak child as they could. I wish I didn’t care.

  Lucas and one other Red, a girl with cropped blond hair, served as our escorts. I had to force myself to stare at the back of Ashley’s head to keep from looking at him when he suddenly matched my pace. I swear, he was warm enough that the snow melted before it touched him—that he kept me warm that whole miserable trek through the mud and sleet. But that would have been crazy.

  Where had he been sent, if it hadn’t been to Thurmond? Where was Mia? Was she like him, or me, or was she one of the other colors?

  The metal Factory doors always sound like they are belching as they are dragged open by the PSFs waiting inside. My hands are useless, cramped and stiff from the cold, but I try squeezing the water from my hair and sweatshirt anyway. We leave a trail of smeared mud and water behind us that the Green cabins on cleanup rotation are going to have to mop up after last meal.

  Ice still clouds the skylights—not that there’s any real sun to filter through the clouds of dirt this morning. Winters stretch on forever in this place, dragging out each dark hour until it becomes almost unbearable. There’s one thing I can’t remember: what it feels like to be truly warm.

  The building is large enough to swallow several hundred kids whole. The main level is nothing but stretches of work tables and plastic bins. The metal rafters above are usually crowded with figures in black uniforms clutching their large guns, but today there’s only a dozen, maybe less. About that many on the ground, too. A thought begins to solidify at the back of my mind, but I push it away before it can take shape. I need to focus. I need to get through today, and maybe tomorrow will feel easier. It always gets easier as you get used to it.

  I see one of the PSFs throw an arm out, pointing to where Lucas needs to stand against the far wall. When he stares at him blankly, the black uniform lets out an explosive cuss and maneuvers him there by force. We see, at the same exact moment the PSFs do, that the Reds need to be shown exactly what to do. And somehow, this scares me more than thinking that these kids have been turned against us, that they might want to voluntarily hurt us. It means that they are nothing more than weapons. Guns. Point, ready. Point, aim. Point, fire. They are like the old metal toy soldiers Lucas was given by his grandpa. Unable to act on their own, but shaped with edges sharp enough to cut your fingers if you’re not careful.

  I don’t care what he is. I don’t care what he could do to me—I care about what they’ve done to my Lucas. I’ve seen enough Red kids to know what the ability does to them, how hot they burn inside their own heads. We thought that they took these kids out to kill them, and now I see they’ve done something much worse. They’ve taken the soul out of the body.

  Is this the cure? Is this what they’ve been working on?

  After all these years, this is what we have to look forward to? Blank faces, blank minds. And their eyes…My stomach clenches. The Reds hadn’t particularly cared who got in the way of their abilities, but when another kid got hurt, it was more often than not an accident. With each escape attempt, each fight they sparked, we knew that when it came down to it, they would be on our side.

  I move stiffly into place, fitting into my usual spot at our table. It’s only when they shut the doors that I begin to feel sensation coming back into me, and even then, it’s only because Vanessa and Ava are crammed next to me, shoulder to shoulder. Can’t talk, but at least we can share the heat that comes off our skin as we start moving.

  A plastic bin on the table is filled with what looks like an assortment of old cell phones. There are no instructions given, only three separate bins in front of that one, each a different color. In the Factory, you assemble, sort, or disassemble. They want each phone broken down into three parts—I watch Vanessa take apart the first one to see if her suspicions match mine. Battery in one bin, the storage card in another one, the plastic casing in the third.

  The work we do here isn’t important. They can’t give us anything sharp, or anything we may be tempted to take and use later as a weapon—against our soft skin, or theirs. No scissors, even. It’s all just work to tire us out. Make us easier to shuffle around and be prodded into our places. After standing on your feet for six hours each day for weeks on end, there’s not enough fight left in you to resist the pull of sleep at night. Not enough thoughts left in your head to wonder where the uniforms you’ve sewn or phones you’ve dismantled are going.

  My fingers seem to be as jumbled and clumsy as my mind today. I can’t get it together—keep it together. I drop the phone case in my hand before I can even pop the battery out, sending it crashing against the concrete floor. Ava stiffens beside me, shrinking away so that any PSF who may be watching will know that it wasn’t her. I drop down onto my knees, quickly patting around blindly under the table until my fingers close around it.

  Get it together, Sam. My head feels light enough to drift away from my neck like a balloon. I try to stand up, and my vision flashes white black white. When Vanessa takes my arm, I let her help me back onto my feet. But the grip doesn’t ease up, even after I’m steady.

  I feel the approach from behind like a cold wind blowing up the back of my shirt, exposing me. This is what a bird feels like, I think, when they feel a storm coming in the distance. I know my breath is coming out in light gasps, and I hate myself for it. I hate the way I want to crawl under the table and fold myself smaller and smaller until I disappear completely.

  I do not know what, in the end, makes a person who they are. If we’re all born one way, or if we only arrive there after a series of choices. The Bible claims that the wicked act on their own desires and impulses, because God is good, only good, and He would never compel a soul to wickedness. Tha
t I’m supposed to count on justice in the next life, even if I can’t have it in this one. My father would say that the Devil works us all to his own ends and that we must constantly be on guard to protect ourselves from him. It helps, sometimes, to think of the man behind me as the Devil himself; it’s easier to become the lion I need to be. I can pretend I know his tricks, that he’s not an unpredictable human with a temper he carefully cultivates like a rose with razor thorns.

  It helps. Sometimes.

  He doesn’t say anything at first, but his breath is hot on the back of my neck, and his smell—oil, cigarette smoke, vinegar, and sweat—wraps around me like an embrace, trapping me where I am. My movements become painfully careful. The sweat that comes to my palm makes holding on to each case a challenge, but I won’t let my hands shake. I refuse to give him the pleasure of knowing that he affects me any more than the other PSFs.

  He’s one of the few that still wears a full PSF uniform; all black and menace, with the embroidered red Psi symbol over his heart under the stitched name Tildon.

  I keep my eyes on the bins in front of me, but I wonder, I wonder all the time, if he or any of them would do these things if we were allowed to meet them eye to eye. Would they feel as free to hurt someone as human as they are? Maybe they just wouldn’t care.

  I should know better; he’s not someone who likes to be ignored. The PSF lets out a disgruntled sound that seems to rip through my eardrums. He takes a step back and I’m just about to release the breath I’d held when I feel a hand slip under my sweatshirt. Under my shirt. A thumb rubs down my spine.

  It’s me.

  I see the thought reflected in the relieved look on the faces of the girls around me. This is the third day in a row since the rotation began that he’s zeroed in on me, come sauntering over like a hunter picking up a bird he’s shot out of the sky. I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe that it’s me.

  My muscles lock first. My head buzzes, emptied of every thought. The sudden shift from badgering bully to—to this actually tilts my world. It’s a soft, delicate touch, and so vile I think my skin is actually crawling to get away from it. I don’t know what to do—I know what I want to do. Scream, shove him away, give in to the burn of bile in my throat. I’ve been hit so many times it’s never occurred to me that this kind of touch could be that much worse than the pain. The hand slides around my hip, down—

  I straighten, turning my head to the side. Vanessa’s face disappears as she turns away, letting a cloud of curling dark hair protect her. What does she have to be afraid of? It has taken years for us to see the pattern of his interest, the careful process of his selection. Last month, when we overlapped cleaning duty with another Green cabin, a girl whispered to us about what happened to her bunkmate. While I am in the room, there will be no one else to him. Only, the attention from the past two days has focused, sharpened from mocking cruelty to something…something like this.

  “Work faster.” His voice makes me think of the way condensation collected on walls of my parents’ unfinished basement. The stones are so dark and the lighting is so bad, you don’t feel the cold drip until it’s already on your skin. You can’t avoid it.

  I see his reflection in the screen of the next phone I pick up. His body is hot and damp and it repulses me more than even the sight of his face. How can someone who looks so normal, like the man who’d delivered our mail each afternoon, be this way? I want to know what hole he crawled out of, and how I can send him straight back into it.

  There are others watching this happen, from above, from around me. I feel their eyes, can sense the attention in the room shifting the longer he stands there, smelling my hair, pressing against me. Even as the hatred boils over in me, shame is right on its heels. It’s the stupidest thing in the world, I know it is, but I am ashamed of what he is doing to me and that others are seeing it.

  When I still don’t react, he grabs my wrist, wrenching it back up into the air. “Search!” he calls out, clearly delighting in the word. “Assistance!”

  It was quiet in the Factory before, but now I can actually hear the rain bleeding through the cracks in the ceiling. Rain and sleet slash against the walls and glass overhead, washing against them like waves. I think I am drowning; I am actually choking trying to get air to my chest. Before today, I would have stood there and just taken it, but I know now that there’s something he’s looking for. Something he wants to see.

  He’d lie about me stealing something from the bin just to strip off every last layer of clothing and shred of defense I have left in front of everyone. When we were kids, this was nothing. A female PSF would lead us to the far corner of the room and stand over us as we took off our uniform to prove that we weren’t hiding anything. I’m not a kid anymore, and none of the women seem to be coming forward. I see one in the rafters, older, thick at the waist, and she’s watching this all play out with a pinched look on her face. She isn’t walking toward the stairs. None of them are.

  But they don’t look surprised.

  So he starts the process for them, tugging my shirt the rest of the way out of my shorts. I hear Vanessa let out a startled gasp, swinging around and bumping the table.

  I push my elbow back, trying to dislodge him.

  “Careful,” he warns.

  Hot shame washes through me. I’m furious at myself for showing these other girls I won’t fight back. Ava is watching me with eyes that are pools of helpless horror, and I realize, with sudden clarity, that if it were any one of them, any of the girls in my cabin, I would have done something immediately, said anything to have made it stop. I need to do the same for myself.

  Because I know where this is heading. Before the Green girl told us, we’d heard whispers in the wash houses and out in the Garden. I know what language his touch is trying to speak, and I feel old Sam, the lion, roaring through my blood again. No one gets to believe that I won’t fight.

  I know that pride is a sin, but I would rather be dead than let him—any of them—think for one more second he’s allowed to do this to me.

  When I feel him lean forward again, I don’t hesitate. I drive both elbows back into his gut, catching him off guard. I know it doesn’t hurt him—that’s why I throw my head back and make sure to nail him in the face, too.

  And I feel like I’m spinning, spinning, spinning, reckless with delight in the small power I’ve managed to take back.

  Vanessa and Ava both scream. Out of the corner of my vision, I see a blur of red coming toward us and I realize that my vision is hazy because my eyes are watering from the blow. My blood is thrumming in my skull, but I can’t feel any pain. I barely hear Tildon when he starts cussing and spitting out one vile word after another. A PSF stands a short distance away with bugged-out eyes, looking between us and a soldier talking into his radio, saying, No, and, Calm Control, and Handled—

  I swing around to face Tildon as he gasps out, “Little…bitch!”

  He’s clutching his nose, the words muffled by fingers and blood. He fumbles for the small White Noise machine at his side and I lash out with my foot, kicking it away. I feel a thousand feet high, like I could land another hit on him before the soldiers in black reach me. So, I do. I haul my hand back and slap him as hard as I can across his face, curling my fingers at the last second. The nails I’ve broken working day after day in this Factory cut into the slick, fleshy part of his cheek. The breath goes out of him like a blown-out tire; the blood dribbling down his lips sprays out, sending a fine mist of it onto my sweatshirt.

  He is scarlet with rage as he stumbles toward me, swinging his free arm to try to club me with his meaty fist. The girls around me have crawled under the tables; I’m dimly aware of the voices and wait for the White Noise, the gunshot, the end to my story. It’s been so long since any of us tried this that I wonder if they’ve forgotten what they’re supposed to do.

  They come out of the stunned haze soon enough. The swing of a nearby baton registers as a change in the flow of the air around me. It
whistles as it swings down. By the time it’s there to connect with my skull, I’m already falling forward. The weight that’s slammed into me from behind drops me to the floor. My chin connects with the concrete and I taste blood. There is not a single part of me that isn’t throbbing in pain, but somehow I’m not done yet. The figure on top of me is feeding the fire. I kick back, trying to catch him—he can’t have me, I won’t let Tildon do this.

  My hands are wrenched from under me and pinned with difficulty against my back. The hand that closes around them is large enough to capture both wrists at once and secure them with plastic binding. I toss my head back, rearing up like a bucking horse, and the warmth at my back shifts, leaning closer to my ear. He breathes out one word.

  “Sammy.”

  IN EVERY MIND, THERE’S A DOORWAY.

  It guards that thing most feared, most hated, most painful—what we ourselves do not want to touch, let alone allow anyone else to see. No two doors are ever alike, and they are never found in the same place. That’s the fun of it.

  The average person allows their mind to grow cluttered. Their fears and doubts and hopes overgrow, winding in and out of each other like weeds in neglected gardens. It takes considerable pruning to get through and find that doorway buried beneath the quivering, pathetic mess of their lives. Usually it’s not worth the effort; people are so strange about the secrets they choose to lock deep inside themselves. The shames they want to bury are ridiculous, the dreams they think important enough to warrant protection from the scorn of others pitiful.

  But then there’s another sort of person. Their mind is so guarded, their thoughts so carefully arranged, that slipping into it is like walking among the shelves of a library after dark. Not a single fragment of their life is left to gather dust, or wander out of place. I never just stumble upon what they do not want me to see, the way I might during a stroll through the other type. It takes work to break each lock on their thoughts, but it’s worth the effort. Their memories only sharpen as I lift them out of their carefully crafted boxes, let them play through my mind. I can trust the information they provide. They are the most careful of archivists.